


Trichotomy

by deplore



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-20 23:53:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15545034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deplore/pseuds/deplore
Summary: There are three basic truths about the world that Kogami Ryoken believes in:Life is a constant and innately unconquerable struggle against one’s own imperfections, where the main factor that distinguishes between the nature of each person’s experiences is that some people are more imperfect than others.Everybody has a outer face and an inner expression. Those two things do not always match, and it is often for the best that they do not.Everything that grows and changes must eventually come to an end (see, the heat death of the universe; also see, the inevitability of death). Thus, there is something unsightly and unnatural about clinging to the things in the hopes that they will stay that way forever.For better or for worse, Fujiki Yusaku does not play well with Ryoken’s truths.Post-canon fic. A deconstruction of Kogami Ryoken in three parts, and a reconstruction in one. (Please read as an entire work.)





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

 

 

There are three basic truths about the world that Kogami Ryoken believes in:

  1. Life is a constant and innately unconquerable struggle against one’s own imperfections, where the main factor that distinguishes between the nature of each person’s experiences is that some people are more imperfect than others.
  2. Everybody has a outer face and an inner expression. Those two things do not always match, and it is often for the best that they do not.
  3. Everything that grows and changes must eventually come to an end (see, the heat death of the universe; also see, the inevitability of death). Thus, there is something unsightly and unnatural about clinging to the things in the hopes that they will stay that way forever.



For better or for worse, Fujiki Yusaku does not play well with Ryoken’s truths.

 

 

* * *

Part I:

_he gazed at the stars,  
while you gazed upon him_

* * *

 

 

“I know you have nightmares,” Yusaku suddenly says over a mid-morning coffee break, unprompted – but Ryoken can tell from the way he enunciates the words that it must be something that Yusaku has thought about for hours already.

“They’re not the same as yours,” Ryoken replies, because Yusaku’s are always about the past and Ryoken’s are always about things that have never happened and perhaps never will – visions of angels come to tear him down, prophecies of futures that never end well, manifestations of guilt that linger in his bones like something physical even after he wakes up.

“I know that too,” Yusaku says.

Ryoken turns his face away, closing his eyes as he bites back the urge to sigh sharply, opening them again as he inhales. “Then why bring it up?” he finally asks.

“Because you can’t,” Yusaku replies.

 _Ah, so you understand that as well_ , Ryoken thinks – he knows it isn’t that Ryoken won’t, or that he simply doesn’t, no – Fujiki Yusaku has correctly discerned that Kogami Ryoken says nothing because he cannot allow himself to let it happen. “There is no need to,” Ryoken says.

Yusaku clasps his hands over his half-empty mug. “You’re wrong about that,” he says.

“Then, it’s because I don’t want to,” Ryoken answers calmly, unemotionally, with carefully pronounced dullness to each syllable.

Yusaku closes his eyes and lets out a small sigh. Then he opens them again, eyelashes fluttering, and looks Ryoken straight on. “You can change your answer as many times as you like,” Yusaku finally says. “I just wanted you to know that you don’t have to hide it.”

Ryoken isn’t sure what that’s supposed to change, though he understands that the words are meant to convey that Yusaku cares for him, for what he thinks, for the beliefs and memories and the nightmares that occupy his mind. Somehow, though, that makes him feel more on edge than less. “I appreciate the sentiment,” Ryoken replies, but the phrase rings hollow even to his own ears.

“Do you truly?” Yusaku asks, his voice so painfully genuine, and then a second later: “That was rhetorical, don’t answer that.”

Tepidly, Ryoken smiles, and he lets the conversation die. Yusaku, for his part, doesn’t push the point.

 

 

 

 

Do you remember a time when the world seemed like it only was full of promise, and you flitted from dream to dream like a firefly circling through a clear summer night? You were full of potential; many roads branched from your feet, and you walked forward without thinking, with the unspoken faith that something good would come at the end of the path. At once you were empty of experience and yet completely full of potential – you held a great quantity of gentle nothingness within.

Perhaps it seems like a long time ago. So much has changed; when you look at what lies ahead of you now, many paths have already disappeared, and the ones that remain have narrowed. No longer do you feel like a child of infinite possibility – there is not enough emptiness within you for that anymore. You are already filled with thoughts and beliefs and memories, the things that make you uniquely yourself.

What a beautiful and terrible thing it is, to live through your own potential.

 

 

 

 

Ryoken understands many things using his rationality. For instance: fate does not deal its hand to people based upon what they deserve. Good people may live difficult lives and the wicked may be blessed with continuous fortune. Another circumstance that he comprehends is that sin is not a matter of inheritance – a father’s crimes aren’t passed down to his son as if they were some sort of tangible asset. Therefore, Kogami Ryoken may be a cybercriminal of infamous proportions, but he is at least not an Icarus who flew too close to God’s domain.

Though he knows these things intellectually, still the emotions that he feels in his heart disagree with what he discerns with his mind. From the contradiction between his mind and his heart emerges a strange and deep sense of discord that he can’t reason his way through with pure logic. Because the fact of the matter is that Kogami Ryoken has everything that he needs to live with happiness – he has a place to live, he has the resources he needs, he has people who love and care for him – and yet, he can’t say that he feels like he has a happy existence.

“Do you have a hard time letting yourself content?” Yusaku asked him once, not long after they moved in together. He had chosen a modest three-bedroom house near the ocean, and Ryoken had paid for it; neither of them brought things from their previous residences along with them – a new house, with new things, for a new beginning.

“Maybe,” Ryoken had replied. “I’ve never thought about it. Do you?”

“I used to be,” Yusaku said, and then looked up, smiling slowly, softly, sweetly – for the first time in years, Ryoken stopped thinking entirely, so stunned by how serene and sincere Yusaku’s expression was that he needed to pause everything else to drink it all in. “I think I’ve gotten better at it since I met you again, though.”

Perhaps that was supposed to be a turning point. Perhaps that was supposed to be the moment that Kogami Ryoken let go of his regrets and stopped thinking of himself as a means to an end, that he started living his own life and moved onto a new chapter, leaving behind the regrets that weigh him down. Perhaps, looking at the way that Yusaku smiled at him, it was supposed to be a moment of change, where he vowed to be better, to let himself pursue happiness, to know that he is worthy of being content with himself.

Instead, his hands shook slightly. He stood, paralyzed, and thought to himself: _I do not deserve this. I cannot have this. I will not take it._

The discord, therefore, remained.


	2. Chapter 2

  

* * *

 

 

If somebody were to write a biography about Kogami Ryoken, then by the age of 20, the book would already be in the epilogue of his life where the final chapter ended roughly one year in the past. To make a very long story short, they lived happily ever after. Things resolved about as well as they possibly could have, a potential extinction crisis was averted, and everybody was allowed to return to the bliss of a relatively uneventful life. Fujiki Yusaku and Kogami Ryoken won each other over (or, depending on the interpretation, were finally permitted to finish winning each other over) and settled down together – the end. The remainder of his days would be consigned to the footnotes.

Reality, though, does not so easily conform to narrative. One story ends, another begins; events overlap, inconsistencies occur. Stories can be made neat – life is invariably messy.

 

 

* * *

 Part II:

_faithless lover_

* * *

 

 

Above all else, one profoundly important truth is that Kogami Ryoken does wholeheartedly love Fujiki Yusaku – more than that, there is nobody else for whom he holds more admiration or devotion in his heart than Fujiki Yusaku. Through his love, his admiration, his devotion – there are moments of happiness that blossom forth. Ryoken thinks that he makes Yusaku happy too, although occasionally he gets a twinge of doubt about it.

And when he doubts, he wonders if somewhere out there, there might be somebody better for Fujiki Yusaku than he is: somebody taller and smarter, a person who is kinder, more open, more worthy – and above else, somebody who doesn’t carry with him years of emotional baggage. Ryoken forces himself to conclude that it’s entirely possible a person like that exists, and as he drags that wayward thought with him over time, he begins to believe that is actually another truth rather than a hypothetical possibility.

Nevertheless, it’s the everyday moments that Ryoken lives for, like when he wakes up and Yusaku’s face is the first thing that he sees, sleeping peacefully at his side – or when they hold hands and Yusaku calmly interlaces their fingers – or just the way that he smiles, when his eyes light up and his entire face beams with contentment – they bloom like flowers, radiant and beautiful, and then they wilt as the moment passes, leaving scattered petals rotting in Ryoken’s ribcage.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes, Ryoken has a dream – it always starts somewhere in the middle, when Yusaku takes Ryoken’s hand and kisses his fingertips one by one before opening his mouth and licking his way down the curve of Ryoken’s pointer finger, tonguing the webbing of skin where his fingers join. And then he shifts his hold to grasp Ryoken by the wrist, dipping his head and tracing the shape of the letters of his tattoo with his tongue, eyes half-lidded – then he takes two fingers into his mouth, almost all the way up to their knuckles, sucking on them until Ryoken can see saliva dripping from the corners of his mouth. Ryoken swallows as a cold sweat forms on the back of his neck; his mind races but his body is so limp, so inert, and the feeling of Yusaku’s mouth and tongue makes him shiver in a peculiar way – all at once it is unpleasant and yet gratifying.

“Please stop,” he whispers, voice strained. “Why are you doing this?”

Yusaku looks up from where he is kneeling, eyes dark with all sorts of emotions that Ryoken is incapable of reading, before rolling his lips off of Ryoken’s fingertips – but he doesn’t relinquish Ryoken’s hand. “Because you want this,” he says, his voice thick and visceral. He bows his head, pressing his forehead to the back of Ryoken’s hand briefly. The view of Yusaku’s nape from above is vaguely unsettling, Ryoken thinks, but he can’t describe with words why it perturbs him so much, even as a faint sense of dread sinks into his flesh.

“It isn’t,” Ryoken begins to say, before the rest of the sentence trails off to places unknown.

“Will you deny me this as well?” Yusaku asks, and then he kisses the knuckles of Ryoken’s hand before looking back up. “You won’t let me do as I like?”

The words echo hollowly in Ryoken’s mind – _deny me this as well – deny me this – this as well?_ – he can’t think properly, not like this, when Yusaku is staring at him straight on with those eyes, piercing through him dully, those eyes – they scare Ryoken because he can’t even begin to fathom how far they could make him stray into temptation if he let down his guard.

“I don’t desire this,” Ryoken finally says.

The way that the corners of Yusaku’s lips slowly turn upward says so much that there is no need for words: _Then, what do you desire?_

“I want,” Ryoken begins to answer, but then his voice cracks – “your forgiveness” – and it feels like the rest of him does too, shattering into pieces and shards, thoroughly broken by a boy who doesn’t even need to get off of his knees to deconstruct him.

“Oh, you liar,” Yusaku says, voice fluttering like a butterfly's wings on their first flight and wafting across Ryoken’s skin in waves. And all the while, Yusaku refuses to let go of Ryoken’s hand –

Ryoken always wakes up from the dream with a prickling heat about his eyes that threatens to overflow into tears. He blinks several times, very quickly, and breathes in deeply through his mouth until the pressure in the back of his head dissipates. The images always linger uncomfortably.

It isn’t that Kogami Ryoken won’t talk about his nightmares, or that he simply doesn’t, no – he says nothing about them because he cannot permit them to exist anywhere other than his own head.

 

 

 

 

When Ryoken created his avatar, he didn’t make it faceless as a statement; the intention was not to do something petty like intimidate others or stand out in a crowd. He made his avatar faceless because he didn’t know what face represented who he was, so to avoid making things more complicated than he wanted them to be, he simply removed it entirely.

And even now, sometimes Ryoken feels like if he cut himself open right through the middle – if he vivisected himself, tried to do open-heart surgery on his own body – then there might be hollow spots where organs should be. There is something missing, he suspects, something fundamentally human that he may once have had but that he can no longer find within himself, and he does not know where to even begin looking for it again.


	3. Chapter 3

 

* * *

 

 Yusaku,  
I love your eyes. I can still see him, that child who was once you,  
when I look into your eyes. But I look in the mirror sometimes and I see  
fear. It’s hard for me to look at my own face. I’m sorry. Sometimes,  
when you look at me, I wonder if you still see him, that child  
who was once me. I’m sorry. That person is already dead and  
gone. I killed him. I buried him. And then I replaced him. I’m sorry.  
You were the only one who mourned him. I can’t look at my own  
face anymore. I don’t want to look at my own face anymore. Yet  
when you look at me with those eyes, your beautiful eyes, I feel

_something_

where there was supposed to be nothing left but a dead body. So,  
Yusaku. Fujiki Yusaku. I love your eyes.  
But please don’t look at me. Please don’t look at me. Please don’t look at  
me.

 

* * *

 Part III:

_shortly before the end  
_

* * *

_  
_

 

Here’s the thing about breaking: often, one doesn’t realize it’s happening. By the time you realize that the terrible sensation that prickled at your skin no matter where you went or who you were with or what you were doing was actually your body trying to tell you what your mind tried to hide from you – _you are coming apart, the stitches are being undone, the foundation is collapsing, please, you have to do something, you need to do anything_ – by that time you have that realization, you are past the point of breaking. You have already broken.

 

 

 

The sun touches the horizon and bathes the sky in a warm, hazy orange shade as Yusaku leans over on the sofa they’re sharing and kisses Ryoken on the cheek; the touch of his lips lingers on Ryoken’s skin and almost makes him want to shiver. There’s something frighteningly picturesque about the moment, and Ryoken feels almost like a puppet playing out a romantic scene than an actual, active participant – he wants to reciprocate, wants so desperately to show Yusaku the extent of his adulation, but he can’t make his body move. “Maybe I can’t do this after all,” Ryoken says, the words escaping before he can really think about what he’s saying.

Yusaku pauses and then pulls away, though only just enough so that they can meet each others’ eyes. “You can’t do what?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” Ryoken answers. “I don’t know. Maybe all of this.”

“You can’t do it, or you don’t want to do it?” Yusaku replies.

Ryoken doesn’t respond because he doesn’t know whether it’s better to lie or tell the truth; he presses his lips together and tenses up, digging his fingernails into the palms of his hands. Finally, he says, “I don’t know why you stay with me.”

“Because I love you. Isn’t that reason enough?” Yusaku answers.

“I think you love a child from years ago,” Ryoken replies, “who gave you some small comfort when you were in need. But that child is already gone, and there is nothing left of him in any meaningful sense.”

“You just don’t see your own self with clarity,” Yusaku says, without missing a beat. “You’re the same at heart.”

Ryoken’s body feels unfamiliar to himself; there is an unpleasantly hot and piercing emotion bubbling underneath his skin – for a few seconds, he entertains the notion of destroying everything around him so that the room looks like how he feels, but he lets that thought run out of his veins before he replies. “Everything changes. Every person changes. That isn’t me anymore,” Ryoken says, and then he sighs sharply. “I’m tired of this, you know.”

“Tired of what, specifically? I don’t… think that I understand what you mean,” Yusaku asks, voice strained.

“I’m exhausted of trying to be somebody I can’t be anymore,” Ryoken replies. “You didn’t ever need _me_ specifically to begin with. In that situation, wouldn’t you have attached yourself to anybody who had a kind word for you?”

Yusaku recoils back like he had been physically struck; his eyes widen and he brings an arm up over his chest, as if to protect himself. He looks down for a moment and then glances back up – Ryoken sees in his expression the same vague fear that he remembers from when they were children. Rapidly and unevenly, Yusaku blinks a few times, but still the tears remain visible in his eyes, even if they manage to stay unshed. Only then does Ryoken comprehend that he’s said something that he can’t take back, words that were unconsciously engineered to hurt Fujiki Yusaku as intimately and painfully as possible.

There are three basic truths about the world that Kogami Ryoken believes in (imperfection, he is so imperfect; his thorough duplicity, masks upon masks until he can’t recall what he wanted to look like in the first place; inevitability, heat death, mortality, apocalypse), and all of them inform him of one thing: there is no coming back from this.

Finally, Yusaku inhales slowly and lowers his arm. He turns to face Ryoken, eyes resolute, and Ryoken knows that these are the last seconds, shortly before the end.


	4. Chapter 4

 

* * *

 

 Three.

“Every time that you get hurt by somebody, I think that’s a chance to either open or close your heart a little further,” he says. Words form in his mouth like flowers, blossoming on his lips so that the sound of his voice feels soft and gentle like springtime petals floating through the air.

Two.

“I won’t close my heart to you,” he says, “because I don’t believe that the person you wanted to hurt is me. It’s yourself, isn’t it? The person that you’ve given up on is yourself.”

One.

“But you’re the only one I’ll never give up on,” he says.

Zero.

And it’s not that Ryoken is saved by those words, but maybe what he feels welling up in his heart is the beginning of salvation.

  

* * *

 Part IV:

 _darling, don’t you know?_  
my love is a wisteria, not a cherry blossom.

* * *

 

 

That night, he has a dream of a vast expanse of still water stretching from horizon to horizon that reflects the twilight sky so perfectly that the entire world seems to be filled with stars. At the center, Yusaku crouches over carefully, ankles submerged in the water as he searches for something underneath the surface – he pulls out a shard of something that looks like glass but shines like something celestial, leaving tendrils of red dissipating through the water as he bleeds on the edges of the fragment.

“Your hands are hurt,” Ryoken says, both everywhere and yet nowhere at all.

Yusaku pauses for a moment and then turns his head up towards the sky. “I don’t mind cutting my hands on the pieces of you,” he replies. “To me, it’s worth it.”

“They won’t fit together the way that they used to,” Ryoken tells him.

“That’s fine,” Yusaku says, calmly, without hesitating. “You’re you, no matter what shape you take.”

Slowly the water ebbs, receding until there is none left – only then does Ryoken realize that the lights weren’t stars in the sky reflected below: they were fragments hidden underneath the water, reflected in the sky above. And seeing those shards shine, Ryoken wonders if he’s finally seeing himself the way that Yusaku sees him.

 

 

 

Living itself is a deceptively difficult act. Everybody doubts, everybody questions, and everybody despairs. You become hurt, and realize there is unfairness; difficult choices with no easy answers present themselves and force you to make painful decisions. You learn your personal limits and your unique flaws and your capacity for cruelty. You struggle, and you struggle, and you struggle – but despite how hard it is sometimes, you continue to live. You continue to live, and simply by living, you refuse to give up on your own potential to be kind and compassionate, to experience happiness and joy, to care for others and be cared for in turn, to reaffirm that there is still a child of infinite possibility alive within you.

In spite of everything, we continue to live. And is that not a beautiful thing, in and of itself? Does that not have inherent worth? Does it not make us strong?

Perhaps these are things that we forget too easily. It is, after all, easier to forget than it is to remember.

 

 

 

 

“When I was younger, I felt like the world was only full of promise,” Ryoken says. “I felt like… I could go anywhere I wanted, and I’d somehow find a way. Do you know what I mean?”

“I do,” Yusaku replies.

Ryoken glances down at his hands, stretching out his fingers and turning his palm over. He breathes in slowly, and exhales before he looks up again. “I think I want to believe in that feeling again,” he says.

Yusaku smiles, and for the first time in far too long, Ryoken smiles back.

**Author's Note:**

> In a lot of ways, this is very much a fic that I wrote for myself, in dialogue with myself, about my experiences, my anticipation of change, but ultimately, my hopes for the future. Nevertheless, I would be happy if perhaps something in this speaks to others as well. 
> 
> Some of the prose/dialogue may seem vaguely familiar; I posted some drabbles on my YGO twitter a while back and used/re-used some of those, though the final form is vastly different from how it was when I first posted them, I think. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and putting up with everything this fic is, haha.


End file.
